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Speaker 1: Live.

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Speaker 2: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.

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Speaker 3: Hello eline friends, Welcome to catam Chud. I'm your show

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host Michelle Burn. Today we're going to talk about something

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I've never heard of in cats, but it's apparently something

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important we had. This show is dedicated to Aaron and

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her cat Rosebud. She wrote in asking about mega colin,

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and we're going to learn all about it with a

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special guest. So stay tuned, we'll be right back.

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Speaker 4: You know the expression cats have nine lives, Well, what

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if you can give them one more? Give them ten?

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Speaker 5: Let's talk bets on Petlife Radio dot com.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome doctor Jeff. He's phenomenal.

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He is an amazing veternarian, amazing person. He's one of

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our show hosts and a dear friend. Thank you doctor

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Jeff so much for coming on Catitude.

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Speaker 1: Well, Michelle, thanks for having me. I think it's great.

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I love to educate people about their pets, and if

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there's anything we can do that gives them a little

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more information, then I feel like a winner.

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Speaker 3: So I didn't know what mega colon was at all,

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and so I did a little educating and I mean,

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you know, from the name, it sounds like something to

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do with a large colon, but it's a fairly serious condition.

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And then I thought a little bit more about is

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it just a temporary does it just occurring cats at times?

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And you know, any ailment with cats is always interesting

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because there's still a creatures and you have to really

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dig to find out information. So what exactly is mega colon?

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Besides I mean, it sounds like large coalon, but what

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is it so exactly.

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Speaker 1: That it is a large colon? And the question is why?

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So what happened is there is a normal mechanism of

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passing food and ingesta through the intestine. It's called peristalsis,

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and that is there. It comes in waves. You have

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circular muscles and longitudinal muscles and they sort of work

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and communicate with each other. So you have a longitudinal

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muscle will propel something forward and the circular muscle will

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make it smaller and then keeps It's like a snake

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moving through, so it keeps the things from the stomach,

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the ingesta it's going through, and each stop is being

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absorption through the intestine, et cetera. Then finally we get

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a number of aspects. You have the duodenum, which is

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the opening the first part of the small intestine goes

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in to the juenum, which is the longest part. Then

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you have the ilium, and then you have those called

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the ilio sicco colic junction, and that takes the food

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the ingesta from the ilium into the colon. Colon has

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almost three sections. It has what's called an ascending colon,

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it's going up. Then you have a transverse colon. The

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acending colon is on the right side. Transverse moves it

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over to the left. And then you have the descending colon,

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which is that last spot. And that's the part that

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seems to be most affected by megacolon, and that is

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the colon loses its ability to appel the ingesta. So

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at this point the stool is sitting in the descending colon.

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It's not being moved. But what's happening to the stool

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is one of the jobs of the colon is to

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resorb that last amount of fluid in the ingesta, to

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make it firm and like normal poop, normal stool. Well,

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the longer it's sitting there, the longer it there is

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going to resorb any fluid. And now the stool gets

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rock hard and solid, and there's no way it's going

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to get moved. So now the colon is getting bigger

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and bigger, it's getting filled up with no ability to

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move propel that stool outside into the rectum. So what

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happens is the muscular gets worse and worse. It starts

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as a small problem and that small problem becomes a

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big problem. So and therefore treatment is going to be

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predicated on how can we fix this problem of full stool,

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very hard stool, and very little muscular activity of the colon.

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Speaker 3: Wow, So what causes this?

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Speaker 1: Now, there's really no known cause. It just happens. We

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see it more in cats than dogs. We see it

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usually an older cats, and it could be age related.

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There's no necessarily now, if there was a one point surgery,

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we always try to avoid surgery of the colon because

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the feeling is normally, if you're, for example, removing a

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foreign body from an animal's intestine, once you know it's

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in the colonys say it is that once it's in

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the colon, it's going out. Say don't cut into a

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colon unless you have to. So no one really knows.

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Is there a particular thing that causes it a dietary problem.

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Maybe there's not a fiber in the diet, But the

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bottom line is that there's no known real cause that

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we know of that we can say, Okay, if you

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do this, it will prevent it. So we don't know

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what this is.

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Speaker 3: We said no fiber in the diet, could trends like

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raw diets, and a lot of people are against kibble

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adding kibble as could that lead.

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Speaker 1: Towards we In general, cats are, as we know, obligatet carnivores, right,

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they don't really typically need to have a lot of

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fiber in their diet. But if they have one such

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cat that seems to have this problem, then it might

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be wise and we could talk about treatment, because there

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are a number of treatment options. But then it might

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be wise to add some fiber to the diet.

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Speaker 3: Okay, before we talk about treatment, what are some symptoms.

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Speaker 1: The symptoms are cats that are going to the litter

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box a lot, trying to defecate, assuming that squatting position,

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and sometimes vocalizing. Interestingly, it's almost the same symptoms as

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a male cat that's blocked who can't pee. They go

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into the box, they're vocalizing. They know they have that

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little stone or something in the wureth rut and it's

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the same type of behavior because they're trying. They're trying,

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it's hurting them. But then you take an X ray

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or you all all we have to do is veterinarians

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is palpit the abdomen and oh my god, you're look

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at an X ray. It feels like, boy, a horse

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would be jealous. I mean, there's so much poop in there.

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You just can't believe it. And it's just backing up.

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Speaker 3: Well, when you said like male cats with like crystals

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in the urn, Dennis, they actually he had a different meal,

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like a different sounds, you know, like in pain. But

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it didn't happen until again the stoic creatures with cats,

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I was not aware of it, right right, And then

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finally we took him to the doctor. One place wanted

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to put him down, and now it was like this

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crazy one to the other. There was the that wasn't

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open once. The next day they did the surgery. They

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kept them an extra day, entertained all of them. Dennis

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is very you know, main coon cattish. Yeah, his symptoms.

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I can just imagine how.

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Speaker 1: I eat it. So they have to prove that they can't. Yeah, drying,

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they keep drying, but they can't.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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Speaker 4: Molly.

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Speaker 3: Here's your dinner. See that's not your food.

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That's Cat treat Trade dot com.

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Speaker 2: C A T d R E E d r A

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y dot com.

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Speaker 5: Let's talk past.

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Speaker 2: Let's done.

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Speaker 7: Talk about Life Radio Headline Radio.

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Speaker 8: At Life radio dot com.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to doctor Jeff when we're

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talking about mega colon. Now, Aaron, one of our listeners,

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had wrote in she unfortunately her cat Rosebud has this ailment.

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And so we're talking about mega colon with doctor Jeff's

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so we can understand it better. Doctor Jeff, does mega

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colon before we talk about treatments? Does it get confused

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with anything else, any other type of ailment?

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Speaker 1: Well, the only thing I can get we can confuse

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it with is I said, mega colon can happen male

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or female cats. Female cats don't typically blow urinary track wise,

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but males do. So the idea of going to a

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litter box frequently, staying there longer than normal, trying to

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push something out again, you can't always tell whether it's

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going to be the feces or whether it's going to

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be urine. And if it's over it's a male, you

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don't know, but it's that and you'll usually hear a

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vocalization which could either be reminiscent of pain or frustration.

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You don't know, but you know it's not normal. And

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with any of that, it's time to take your cat

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into your veterinarian and have him or are evaluated.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So what would you expect to hear from your veterinarian.

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I mean, as you've talked about those three different phases,

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it could be like beginning phase, and it could be

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middle and then could be you know, like a full

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stomach like you'd mentioned.

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Speaker 1: Right, So the treatments vary so much. First one we

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have to think about a I usually start with an enema.

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You got to get that stuff out of there because

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it's so uncomfortable for the cat. Prokinetics proconetics are drugs

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that are like sissypride, and those are drugs that seem

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to increase the motility, the muscular activity in the colon

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to again try to push things out. We also talk

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about stool softeners, things like lactulose or miural acts, which

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is something you can get over the counter. It's added

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fiber and it just again to soften the stool as

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it's going through the intestine to make it more comfortable

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for the cat. And then again, first thing I gotta

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do is relieve this poor cats discomfort and pain. So

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I'll do an enema, sometimes going digitally, and we'll try

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to literally scoop out while I'm compressing. And this has

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to be sometimes done with anethes of course that I'm

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pushing the value I'm trying to I'm trying to do

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what the colon can't do, and that's propel the ingesta out.

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So I'm pushing it and as I'm pushing it, we're

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using you know, with our digitally and just you not

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believe some of the size of the stool, the feces

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that I've now of a cat, As I said, the

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horse would be jealous. I mean, it's it's huge. And

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you said, how did this poor cat survive this? How

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is it not just going nuts? So anyway, so short

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term it's let's get them on prokinetics, let's get them

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on stool softeners, and then longer term then that's where

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we think about. Okay, now that we know this is

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a problem with the cat, this is where I mentioned,

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you know, dietary change, getting a more high fiber diet

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and that helps control bowel movements. Now, in really bad cases,

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we may have to do something that I have never done.

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I haven't had to fortunately, and if I did, I

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would not do it. I would send it to a

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board certified veterinate surgeon. And that's called a collectomy where

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you have to literally cut into part of the colon

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and medical management didn't work and you have to unload.

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You have to get rid of this stuff. As I said,

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I'm not a big fan of cutting into a colon.

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I don't do it. I think there are potential dangers

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with scarring after this surgery, et cetera. And it's usually

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recommended not to if you don't have to, but sometimes

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you may have to. So that's you know, that's the issue.

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And then you know again some of you want to

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work with veterinarian but you know, again, the keys are

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getting rid of what's in there now, and that might

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require sedation and a good enema and literally digitally removing

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the feces out of the colon, doing some sissapride or

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some sort of prokinetic which will get the colon moving,

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a stool softener okay, and then ultimately adding fiber to

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the diet.

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Speaker 3: What about fluids fluids.

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Speaker 1: If the cat is dehydrated, then absolutely to give some

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subju fluids or ivy fluids that just might help again

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the body renormalize and maybe you can get some propelling

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action from the colon just to the fact that they

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feel better.

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Speaker 3: Okay, thanks, This is so informed of In my research online,

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I read a lot and there's a lot of talk

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about relax. What about pat parent thinking their cat probably

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has mega col and maybe you know, it feels a

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little stomach, feels a little large or whatever and are

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hard and they decide, well, let me give a little

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mirrorlax to my cat. I mean, is that something you

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could try?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's not going to hurt. I talk to your

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veterinarian first, just about the dough based on the weight

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of your cat or lactuloaks, which is also one that

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I recommend. And the idea is if you want to

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try it, it shouldn't hurt, but you don't want to

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give too much and see if that will help. You know,

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sometimes unfortunately when it gets to the point of almost

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causing a blockage, it's almost too late for that. But

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if you can try it and if it works, great.

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I found that what I try to do is when

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it's really bad. First step I do is try to

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clean out the colon because once that firm, hard stool

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is formed, you can't soften it once it's already there.

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So the whole idea is to keep the stool soft

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as it's passing through the colon and the system pride

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the prokinetic, we'll keep the muscular activity there. Then I

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think it's going to be more effective.

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Speaker 3: And once your cat has treatment, it seems like it

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needs to be ongoing. Correct, correct, So can you expect

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problems problematic from time to time? Do you need to

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watch the cat's stool?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've had cats that have come in almost on

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an every other week basis for an enema. That colon

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is just not it's not working and the stuff doesn't work,

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and the set news is that everything else is fine.

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So what are you gonna say no to the cat?

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You're gonna you're gonna be not gonna put them to sleep.

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So we just go in, We do an enema. We

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get it earlier now, so it's not we don't have

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to knock them out. We just give the anima helps them.

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We can just palpate and smoothly push push, everything out

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and they do they do really well.

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Speaker 7: Only once a week. Yep, yeah, so it could store

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that much store. But again you still keep your prokinetics

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and and try to keep the stools off if you

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keep the stool really soft, almost like diarrhea, right, not watery,

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a cow patty ish we call that different consistencies.

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Speaker 1: All right. I know it sounds gross for a bros.

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Speaker 3: But you know, poop is a thing that we have

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to look at it.

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Speaker 1: Right, So you can have it like it's squirts, we

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call it that's really watery, or you can have cow patty,

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which is like soft serve and okay, what do you say?

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This is what we talk about now.

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Speaker 3: It's and you know, as for pet parents.

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Speaker 1: We have to look at the poop.

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Speaker 3: We have to pay box to see what's going on.

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They don't really tell us these things. You know, what

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about cat pet parents that are listening out there that thinking, well,

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if whatever happens, I'm good with my cat. My cat's

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called Can a pet parent give a cat an enema?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I think what they should do

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is there are animals, you know, made they're coming with

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a long nozzle made for cats and dogs. It comes

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almost like a syringe. All I recommend is it's almost

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like teaching a client how to clean ears, or teaching

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a client how to give shot for insulin. If the

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cat's a pets, a diabetic or a lot of times

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people will buy adequin for our joints and teach them

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how to give shots. It's really not that difficult. They

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just should should be shown how to do it. So

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I recommend if you, if your cat is having this

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problem and may need routine animals, go in, have your

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doctor or your nurse, the veteran nurse show you how

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to do it the proper way, and it's something easy

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to learn.

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Speaker 3: Okay, what if your vet doesn't want to show you

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how to do it, which you should know how because

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it ever happens over a holiday or something, it needs.

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Speaker 1: To do it, I can't imagine, you know. Again, I

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don't want to get it.

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Speaker 3: Rather have you come visit them. You know, my philosophy

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is very different, but some veterinarians will. I'd rather have

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you come in and.

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Speaker 1: Write, of course, and that's fine, but for something that

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can be taught, and the veterinarians don't want to do it,

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and I'll be how crude can I be I'm going

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to say it's time to find another vet.

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Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't understand it. What do you care

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more about? Are you more interested in the pets welfare

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or more interested in the money. Okay, Now, if the

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vet said, look, I'm not going to charge you, I

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just feel more comfortable. I think one of my technicians

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do it. I'll show you how to do it in

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case you're stuck on a weekend, but otherwise, I just

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you know, there can be some then that's fine, that's fine.

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But if they say no, you have to come in,

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we're gonna charge you for it, then you're looking at

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a vet whose mind is not necessarily just on the

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pets welfare. And I don't like that.

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Speaker 3: Glad to hear it. We went into that from time

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to time. I myself have switched vets. I had a

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vet once that it was my dog when mister Zees,

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when he was still alive, obviously, and the vet complained

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about hair. She had hair on herself, logstand it on herself,

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and she just looked and complained, and I thought, all right,

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I'm out of there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no no, I come home full of hair

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and a people even say it. Oh my god, I'm

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so sorry, I said, you think I really care. I

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do this for a living. I go home, My dogs

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think I'm cheating on it. But you know, it is

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what it.

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Speaker 3: Is, one of those things, right. So final in closing,

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what would you have to say to a cat parent

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who's just gotten the diagnosis that their cat has mega

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colon and is maybe just just so worried about it.

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How are they going to do the ongoing care? Is

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it going to be you know, shortened the cat's lifespan,

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or you know they're just anxious a matter? What would

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you tell them?

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Speaker 1: I would say that in most cases it is a

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manageable condition. It may not be curable, but certainly manageable.

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Some need more management than others. And don't fret, not yet,

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Let's try these things work with your veterinarian. The worst

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scenarios you have to give enemies on your own, which

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isn't so terrible. And the even you even learn how

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to palp pay the cat, and these you could see

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was it? When's it getting really bad? And these are

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things that can be taught. And if you are queasy

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about it, that's okay. Just routinely I had a client

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that had an old, old Yorki. She was a Yorkie

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rescue and she didn't feel comfortable giving She's given sub

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to flues before, but this dog was so frail she

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wasn't comfortable doing it. And she came in every day

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all right. For subcu fluids we charged a whopping ten

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dollars and mostly just for the tech time and Doug

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live for God God. Actually a year and a half

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we finally put it to sleep or died at almost seventeen. Wow.

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As I said, not usually not curable, but certainly manageable.

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Speaker 3: Well, and then thank you so much. Let's tell listeners

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where they can find out more about you and about

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your live show.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm doing here right here, a pet Life Radio.

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I am on every Sunday morning nine in the West

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and noon in the East and wherever in between. It's

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Ask the Vest with Doctor Jeff and I also do

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that along with my Instagram live so IG Live, and

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I am Verbs. That's my nickname since I'm like literally

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a kid in camp Verbs Underscore DVM and you can

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find me on Instagram. I'd love to have you follow.

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You can also get a hold of me pretty much

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anytime and Also, I am chief veteran Officer at Airvet,

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were the largest pet telemedicine platform in the United States,

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and you have access to a veterinarian literally twenty four

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00:20:55,799 --> 00:20:58,559
to seven. Within one to two minutes, you're going to

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00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:01,039
be live, so you might want to download that. It's

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an app and it's called air Vet and you can

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always get me here at doctor Jeff at petlife radio

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dot com.

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Speaker 3: Doctor Jeff, thank you so much for coming Onlatitude.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, and I hope your listeners are

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feel comfortable joining my show on a Sunday or just

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at pet Life Radio. Doctor Jeff at pet Life Radio.

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If you have questions you're not really getting satisfied with

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your answers from your veterinarian, please reach out to me.

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Just let me know your work with Michelle and I'll

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be happy to help you well.

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Speaker 3: I hope you all enjoyed our show. I want to

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give it thanks to doctor Jeff. Thank you so much

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for coming on Platitude and telling us all about Mega Colon.

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I know my listening audience is much more informed than

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they ever were, so thank you so much. Thank you

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for listening to Catitude. I greatly appreciate your loyalty. Thanks

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to my cat crew Dennis, Molly and Charlotte patiently listen

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to me and let me rub their bellies, and I'm

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grateful that they do not have mega colon and hope

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they stay that way. My thoughts and prayers and hopes

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and wishes for Aaron and Rosebud. Listeners to Cutitude that

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wrote in to ask about mega colon Erin, I hope

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you're able to take good care of Rosebud and she

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is able to, you know, function as best she can

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with her condition. And of course, thank you so much too,

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my producer Mark Linter for working as magic and making

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each episode sound amazing. And remember Lise's attitude. Have Caatitude.

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Speaker 5: Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlive

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radio dot com